May Repeats Trump Retweet Criticism. Microscopy Workshop.

President Trump tells Theresa May to stop criticising him and rather tackle Islamic extremism in the UK. However, the Prime Minister stands by her decision that re-tweeting items from a far right organsiation was wrong. Parliament showing various degrees of disapproval. Britain in a bind however, as leaving the EU also requires  a good trade deal with the the US.

Net migration to the Uk has shrunk by 90,000 to 250,000 per year, with the largest decline in EU citizens.

Ran a workshop on using the microscope at a nearby college today. I had learnt from the previous shorter session earlier in the month and ensured there was a staged structure to the session. The biggest hit was introducing the 14 students to growing your own vitamin C crystals and viewing them using polarisation filters.

They avidly photographed their work using their smartphones. Getting a steady picture was enabled by spacers made from short hosepipe rings to raise and support the cameras on the eyepieces. An enthusiastic positive group who should now be able to return to their workplaces as the microscopy experts. Looking forward to seeing and judging their pictures and videos.

UK-Divorce Payment Seen Through Different Lenses. Toxic Trump Tweets. Microscope Lamp Lightbulb Trials

Small package in big box

The rumoured Brexit UK payment deal is being interpreted and debated in different forms today. Hardline Tories could actually decide to vote against the Brexit deal as they cannot stomach paying anything, never mind £50bn to the EU as we leave. More moderate Tories want guarantees that the payments are at least linked to the trade talks. 

Remainers are wondering why we are promising to pay out such a large sum when it is actually cheapter to stay within the EU and actually retain all the benefits. 

EU representatives are cagey on what the payment is and also do not see it as being linked to the trade agreement, merely as paving the way to enter into negotiations. The EU also needs to agree that progress has been made on the other two bones of contention, EU citizens rights after Brexit and the Irish border question.

President Trump manages to cause outrage in the UK and elsewhere for retweeting divisive, inaccurate and unverified videos previously posted by a far right, radical anti-Islamic, Britain First leader, Jayda Fransen. Apparently this is directed more at influencing his domestic audience, presumably to garner continued support for his anti-islamic ban and other similar sentiments. Relieved that the Prime Minister has added her voice to condemning this particular set of tweets.

For some reason, could not sleep last night, so spent some time playing around with microscopes in preparation for giving a workshop tomorrow. Ended up trying three different lighting systems for a focussed microscope lamp; fluorescent, LED and halogen. 

The fluorescent light worked best for observations by eye but presented problems when trying photography due to the 50hz flicker causing banding on both the camera's screen view and in the photographs. The halogen bulb was suitably bright but I lacked a diffuser over the bulb. The diffused LED bulb was OK visually and avoided the flicker. however, at lower magnifications, I may have a slight radial brightness gradient from centre to the edge of the image. For low magnifications (up to 100x) the best light source, when using a microscope with a mirror, was a multiple LED map and diffuser to provide a large even illuminated light source. will post on Quekett FB page.

Annoying post of the day was delivery of a small package in a big box. The contents were not that sensitive and could have been wrapped and sent with smaller packaging.

Hints UK - EU Divorce Bill Agreed. High FLying NK ICBM. Cakes and Custard.

Mango sponge cake made by Nathalie Garbolino-riva

News is currently circulating that according to several diplomats, the UK has accepted its EU liabilities up to Euro 100bn, though it is likely that they will be half that. It is being kept muted as it is hoped to be part of a package to be presented by Prime Minister Theresa May, after David Davis and Michel Barnier meet next week. There has been progress on the EU citizens rights in the UK after Brexit but there is still work to be done on the Ireland border issue.

North Korea has launched another intercontinental ballistic missile. Whilst it flew about 620 miles to fall into the Sea of Japan, it flew higher than its predecessors. This is important as more height means greater range. The US, now potentially in range, sees this as a global threat.

A relative has been able to return from the island of Bali, via Jakarta. Thousands of local residents and tourists are still trapped as the Bali volcano Mount Agun spews ash and is possibly due for an imminent major eruption.

Our baker, Nathalie, outdid herself with baking three very different cakes for today's Community Cafe. We had a mango sponge, apple and mandarin lattice pie and brownies. With custard!

Royal Engagement Swamps Brexit Tech Investment. The Bane of Windows Updates.

Agama Lizard - featuring in a new book in progress

Today, the government announced a major set of investments in technology to promote growth in the high tech sectors of robotics and biomedical technology. These, and future announcements are part of a comeback from the gloom of Brexit, aiming to improve Britain's poor productivity. Commentators were quick to point out that these industries already had a higher than average productivity and that it would not be so easy to achieve an effect in more conventional businesses.

The news was however overshadowed by a more rapid and effective boost to the UK economy, the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Britain brings a ray of positivity to the world and will hold the public's attention with increasing expectation to a crescendo at the Royal Wedding. Meghan brings with her a tradition as an ambassador for equal rites, whether for women, against discrimination and the under-privileged. With Harry fifth in line to the throne, hopefully this can continue. Otherwise, total news domination likely for the next few days, I'm already tired of it! Let them be happy and get on with their lives.

Whilst the government might have been disappointed at being eclipsed by the royal revelation, it did also push some more critical Brexit news into the background. Close to the deadline, the brexit impact assessment papers have finally been handed over to the Exiting the EU Committee. However, they are likely to ignite a new row as Brexit Secretary David Davis has admitted that they were redacted of any commercially sensitive information that could impact on the brexit negotiations if made public, thereby rendering the papers less than useful.

I'm pretty annoyed that I had to head off to World of Computers to see if they could resolve my recently occurring laptop problem. After a recent update, the laptop functioned OK for a while and then the display stretched the screen images and displays. Unable to solve the issue myself over the weekend, despite googling, trying to find possible drivers and reverting to previous restore points, it was time for the experts to have a go. I am currently writing this blog on an older laptop running Linux, without any problems after updating.The built in redundancy and pressure to buy ever newer digital components is not environmentally sustainable in the long run.

Ireland Brexit Border Shenanigans. Steampunk at the National Space Centre.

The Irish border with Northern Ireland has become the new crunch point in the Brexit talks, prior to getting agreement from the EU to move on to the next stage of negotiating the trade arrangements with the EU during  and after Brexit.

The Ireland leader stated that they would block progress on the EU Brexit negotiations if the border issue is not resolved.

UK Secretary of State for International Trade, Dr Liam Fox, countered today that the Irish border issue won't be resolved until EU-UK trade deal struck.

 The EU's agriculture commissioner, Phil Hogan, thinks that if the UK stayed in the customs union, this would resolve the issue. Hardliners in the UK government would not accept this.

The Northern Ireland leader categorically rejects displacing the border between the UK mainland and the Irish island as this would cut Northern Ireland from the UK.

A scandal in Ireland may actually derail the Irish government, confusing the issue further.

We visited the National Space Centre in Leicester today, with S & L, a 90 mile drive. It was a special weekend including 'Steampunks in Space', which meant that the museum sported a fair proportion of visitors in Steampunk attire and a smattering of steampunk displays. Men with magnificent Victorian moustaches, glorious waistcoats and HG Well inspired jet packs were matched by women in corseted ruffled dresses with various levels of lace and military insignia of the female steampunk space contingent. Following on from the Victorian tradition of young children as chimney-sweeps, one gentleman was trailed by the steampunk equivalent of a smaller lad for cleaning minor rocket boosters and a taller one for larger nozzles. Among the displays was an impressive life-size steampunk reconstruction of a steam-powered R2D2 robot.

Despite wearing a fairly modest 6 inch badge proclaiming it was my birthday today, numerous eagle eyed people observed the fact. The best moment was when we were in the planetarium and the presenter asked if I was present, announcing it was my birthday and the audience broke out in singing Happy Birthday.

There was almost too much going on so we used the visit to familiarise ourselves with the displays, from the two full rockets standing in the Rocket hall, the Soyuz capsule and an early Gemini TTV-2 wheeled capsule for paragliding landings, the solar system and astronaut training displays, and the Europa Landing simulation.

A wonderful, if tiring, day out.

Trump and Clinton Support Obama Family. Brexit and Food. Crumpets

Crumpets!

With the harsh polarised political debates in both the US and UK, it is great to see the presidential families in agreement on one issue, the right of their children to privacy. Most recently, President Obama's daughter Malia became the focus of the media. Both Ivanka Trump and Chelsea Clinton tweeted in the teenager's defence, saying she had the right to the same privacy as her peers and not be media 'clickbait'. Chelsea had also come to the defence of Barron Trump, the current president's youngest son, in the past.

Australia's Trade Minister Steven Ciobo has criticised the UK's plans to continue to maintain the quotas for imports into Europe from Australia after Brexit. This leaves the UK less able to negotiate a more positive arrangement with Australia for food imports in the future. Other future trading partners such as New Zealand, United States, Canada and Brazil, would also be affected in the same way.

Worryingly, in the run-up to Christmas, there may be a shortage of brussel sprouts due to Brexit! Many farms are struggling because there are not enough pickers from the EU. This follows a bad year where moth pests caused damage to the crop for the 2016 Christmas and wet weather led to damaged crops back in 2014. There will be tears in many homes and children may march in protest at the absence of this vegetable from their Christmas dinners - or not.

Other news looked at the horrendous aftermath of the massive attack by IS on a Mosque during Friday prayers in Egypt.

With the sudden cold snap, I had a sudden urge to make crumpets. I followed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe in his 'Bread' book, but halved the ingredients, aiming to make six instead of twelve. It is a strange mixture in that it is a thick batter, first fermented with yeast to get bubbles into the mix, then cooked with added baking powder to get the big bubbles. Jane had bought me some crumpet rings a couple of years ago and i put them to good use. The results were moderately successful with the first three crumpets being a bit soggy in the middle. They were so filling that the next batch of three were allowed to cool and stored for toasting on another day.

Tusk Caution re Brexit progress. Trump to Solve Middle East and play golf.

Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Boudicca at the Norris last Summer

Donald Tusk tweeted after his one  hour meeting with Theresa May “Sufficient progress in Brexit talks at December [European council meeting] is possible,” Tusk tweeted. “But still a huge challenge. We need to see progress from UK within 10 days on all issues, including on Ireland.”

President Trump apparently planned to talk to Turkey's president today to sort out the Middle East problem, before setting off for his 76th visit to his Golf Club during his presidency, to play a a quick round with Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson.

A quick planning meeting for a microscopy session in Milton before setting off to the Norris Museum today. Helped with some image editing and had a fascinating conversation with a volunteer who had worked in the UK space industry in the 1990s.

This evening, bedevilled by my Windows 10 on the laptop suddenly losing the ability to display properly in 16:9 ratio, stretching images and display horizontally instead. Googling online, lots of others have had the same problem, without clear solutions.

Brexit impacts Gibraltar and UK Cities. Traffic Chaos. Deep Blue of Ocean and Space.

CT Archive picture

Woke up to the news that Spain claims that Gibraltar would face a hard Brexit, even if the UK goes into a transition phase. The reason, apparently there has been no dialogue between the UK and Spain regarding Gibraltar. Gibraltarians voted with a vast majority against Brexit in the referendum.

This was followed by the exclusion of the UK cities entering for the bid of European Capital of the Year for 2023. Dundee, Nottingham, Leeds, Milton Keynes and Belfast/Derry had all submitted their bids last year before the referendum. The UK government said the competition would "run as normal", but warned  that it "may be subject to" the Brexit negotiations. The EU commission stated the UK would no longer be eligible to host a European Captial of the Year after leaving the EU in 2019.

There was a more personal impact of the continuing Brexit confusion when I attended the CETC event at the British Antarctic survey this evening. At least three EU citizens who had lived, worked, paid UK taxes and had children with British partners here over decades found themselves not knowing where their future lay and bitterly disappointed.

Getting to the event off Madingley road was a bit of a challenge. We set off just before rush hour and took nearly an hour to traverse the city to cover the 5.2 miles to the venue. This was just before the two accidents which closed the A14 in both directions. At least we found a parking space.

It was a fascinating evening, with speakers talking about exploring the sea bed around an underneath the Antarctic ice sheets, searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 and mapping the seabed off the coast of Australia in the process, and a company looking to build a commercial astronaut training centre in the UK with a state of the art deep pool for weightless training. Impressed by the four enthusiastic engineering students who were continuing the tradition of developing ever more successful Cambridge Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, bringing along their Black Ghost, a previous model.

The two nuggets that stuck in my mind were  first, that for every hour of a planned spacewalk, an astronaut has to train seven hours in a pool mimicking weightlessness. The second was that when Alexey Leonov made the first ever spacewalk on March 18, 1965 , his space suit inflated too much in the vacuum of space. he could not reach the suit camera on his chest and, more importantly, he was now too big to get back into the spacecraft. Not wanting to be the first person to walk in space and then die, he opened a valve to let out air and depressurise his suit. He managed to squeeze back in but was on the verge of getting 'the bends'.

Hammond Survives Budget. Tooth Extraction and Dentistry's Gender Balance

Offending Tooth after Extraction

UK Chancellor Philip Hammond put a positive spin on what was, in effect, a toothless budget today. Whilst making positive noises about the increase in the number of jobs and unexpectedly larger than expected tax revenues, he could not gloss over the fact that he had to borrow more money than originally planned in the coming year.

This is to pay for the additional billions required to stave off the NHS crisis, put a plaster on the catastrophic waiting times for prospective recipients of universal credit, and to put extra money aside for dealing with Brexit.

This could not hide the figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility, which revised their growth expectations for the UK downwards over the coming years to 1.5%, the worst growth since the 1980's and currently lower than many other developing nations.

The support for additional Maths funding in schools was positive.

But, with no major antagonism of either of the Brexit camps and addressing some of conservative MP's concerns, he has survived politically.

The dental theme arose because today I had the first tooth extraction since I was a child. My memory of that time was being in a forces hospital, with two others, to have three four and five teeth extracted respectively. I had four removed at the time to make way for future teeth.

My new dentist, Maria, pumped my lower left jaw full of anaesthetic whilst the assistant gave me a run down, in a reassuring tone, on what was going to happen and how to look after the resultant cavity. Even I had to acknowledge that the molar needed removing. Its roots had been filled, the top capped nearly a decade ago for a mere £1000, so I had been reluctant to let it go. Bleeding gums, the X-ray evidence of an abscess and decay meant it's time it had come.

It was with fascination, trepidation and yet a slight detachment that I felt the tooth being gripped, pressed down and twisted back and forth to break the ligaments holding it in, before it was pulled out with bits of associated cartilage and flesh. A wad was placed over the gaping hole in my jaw and I was told to bite down for 15 minutes, to allow the blood to clot. Still reluctant to part with the tooth, I was allowed to take the trophy away with me.

Maria issued a matter-of-fact warning that if there was an increase in pain accompanied by bad breath, I should return for additional treatment and antibiotics as that would signal a resurgent residual bacterial infection, a fate I hope to avoid. I left, struck numb by biting on the wad and the absence of any feeling on the left side of my face.

So far, two paracetamols have been all that I needed, with hardly any pain. I'd been told to take it easy for the rest of the day - good advice as I did feel a bit washed out. This was more than compensated for by Jane's empathetic response, though I was warned that this had a strict 24 hour limit.

I used to have a fear of dentists, probably arising from childhood experiences in Singapore where occasionally the anaesthetic failed and the old buzz-drill vibrated the whole head when dealing with sugar damaged childhood teeth from a pre-flourinated era. Most of the negative experiences had been with the males of the profession, whereas decades with Miss Kenny, Maria's retired predecessor, had been less traumatic, despite the later fillings needed.

This had me wondering, in an idle moment today, about the gender ratio for the dentists. Back in 2007, only about a quarter of US dentists were female. Other countries however had radically different figures. As far back as 1970, half of the dentists in Greece were women, about one-third in France, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and almost four-fifths in Russia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania. Currently in the UK the male to female ratio is approximately 55% to 45% and the current entrants to dentistry training suggest  a 50:50 male:female ratio when they graduate.

The numerical equality is not matched in income, according to a 2015 BDA report. Of the dentists in the highest pay bracket, only one quarter were women, whereas at the other end of the scale about two thirds of the lowest paid dentists were women. See: https://bda.org/dentists/policy-campaigns/campaigns/women-in-dentistry. While there are a number of factors, such as the older average age of male dentists, and 72% of men working more than 30 hours per week on average compared to 45% of women, there is still a gender bias to be bridged.

RIP Internet Neutrality? Mugabe Resignation. Milton Calendar and The Late Staples.

The government backed down today about avoiding the integration of EU charter of human rights in the  EU withdrawal bill debate, in its 3rd day.

DUP leader Arlene Foster called out Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar as "reckless" for pushing the issue of the possible Irish Border as a Brexit problem, when the concern should be more to work together with Northern Ireland, as most of the Republic's trade is with the UK.

One of Obama's decisions in 2015, during his presidency, was to protect net neutrality, i.e. that access to the internet would be treated as a utility and not be open to the offer of tiered services. This was regulated by the Federal Communications Commision. In line with other Obama decisions, this is likely to be revoked/reversed now that the Republicans are in control.  The FCC has stated it will scrap the open internet rules,  the vote on putting its plan into action will be in December.

Robert Mugabe resigns after days of protests and the 'non-coup' by the Zimbabwean military. The situation arose after the country's other leaders finally had enough of being fired as he tried to prepare for his wife to continue the dynasty. Euphoria on the streets of Harare but time will tell if democracy is re-instated.

Today saw the arrival of a heavy box from the printers. The printed sheets to make the Milton Calendar had arrived. Including the binding in the printing would have doubled the the price, so the search was on for finding our own solution and driving to the office supply store on Newmarket Road.. The biggest shock of the day, Staples is no longer on the high streets, its retail chain was bought by Hilco Capital, owner of HMV, and rebranded as Office Outlet back in February. The fact that I had not noticed till now is a testament the internet taking over in my shopping habits.

Brexit Banking and Passporting Blow to UK. The Laddish Victimisation of Women Today.

The Start of Chippolata Yorkshire Puddings

Three dissapointments today, for Frankfurt, Athens and the UK. Via a complex three rounds of votes, with 19 cities bidding to host the European Medicines Agency EMA and the European Banking Authority EBA. The final winners were Amsterdam, which will host the EMA, and Paris, to host the EBA. The harsh reality of Brexit already having an effect on the UK, with these agencies moving out of London.

This was compounded by the probably more serious impact of the comment by Michel Barnier's comment that UK banks will lose their Passporting rights on Brexit. These currently allow any bank in a particular EU location, such as the UK, to offer its services anywhere in the EU. This included overseas banks that have a branch in an EU country. After Brexit, 5,400 British firms could see a stark impact on their current £9bn in revenue every year into Britain, based on their passporting rights.

The cabinet has possibly agreed that the UK will double their financial offer to the EU financial settlement to £40bn - this includes hard brexiteers Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. The Express had warned that this would invoke 'public fury'.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel is more willing to go into a new election than lead a minority Government after the proposed Jamaica Coalition has broken down, with the Free Democrats saying they won't join in. This has been seized by the Times as a chance for May to exploit Merkel's weakness, whilst the Guardian points out that Brexit is very low on the list of Germany's politics and that things are unlikely to change in the near future.

I gave three hours of IT assistance via the phone today to both the UK and Germany today - and survived relatively unscathed with success in both cases. It was therefore a pleasant relief to have S and L drop by in the afternoon and an evening meal. I thought that I would try to make a crispier toad in the hole by making lots of little Yorkshire puddings with a chippolata each. It sort of worked but the Yorkshires were more prone to stick in the molds, presumably doe to the additional liquid in the sausages.

Our discussions extended to acceptable behaviour versus harassment, arising from the continuing public disclosures of misdemeanors, accusations and possible resignations. There was a worry from the male side that it was becoming increasingly difficult to decide when behaviour and comments towards wom0en were simply humour between colleagues or sexual harassment. I think that ultimately those that worry about where boundaries lie are least likely to actually be offenders, precisely because they are capable of seeing things from a different perspective.

There is an interesting comparison of gender attitudes in 24 countries, conduced by YouGov back in 2015 https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/12/global-gender-equality-report/. More disturbing, however, were the results of the Fawcett Societey report "Sounds Familiar", revealing the way young women feel misrepresented and victimised by lad culture where more than 60% experienced that saying no to unwanted attention in pubs and bars could lead to abuse and violence. A significant hardcore of men (nearly 20%) held mysogenistic views towards women and both men (38%) and women (34%) felt that if a woman goes out late at night, wearing a short skirt, gets drunk and is then the victim of a sexual assault, she is totally or partly to blame. Ironically, it is amongst the young, 18 to 24 year old men, that attitudes are most polarised, with laddish attitudes on the one hand and a more sensitive attitudes on the other. Sadly, the indicators for equality had been declining in terms of the UK's global ranking.

There is a summary of the Fawcett Soceity Report here:

https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/News/fawcett-report-hostility-complacency-blame-culture-against-women

And the full "Sounds Familiar" report here:
https://www.swansea.ac.uk/media/Sounds-Familiar-January-2017.pdf

Home Office Hiring EU Staff to Register EU Citizens. Trump's Ultra-Rich Tax Bonanza. Fly-tipping

On the Cam - from today's walk

No unemployed in Britain, Hurrah! Well according to Philip Hammond for a short while when interviewed by the BBC. More seriously, The Home Office is struggling to find more staff to deal with to register EU nationals and deal with the existing backlog. As we are still within the EU, they are accepting EU nationals to fill the posts("The Home Office recruits on merit, not nationality"). Whilst some have blamed the location of the Home Office departments dealing with registration in Sheffield, the real issue is the immensity of the task. Even if the full complement of 500 additional staff, added to the newly recruited 700, is achieved, each case worker would have to deal with 1,500 applicants each. Current applications, including visas, are already beginning to experience unacceptable delays.

I've only just caught up with the planned Tax Reform in the US, with two different proposed versions, according to the Guardian. The beneficiaries because of tax cuts are the rich, with "the Trump family (saving) $1.15bn when he dies". The losers include with the latest version of the Senate tax bill, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation,  would be lower-income Americans, experiencing increased taxes by 2021.

Major news items today focus on the expected and undelivered resignation by Robert Mugabe, currently still President of Zimbabwe. This in the face of a very restrained military takeover, Mugabe's dismissal as leader of his party, ZANU-PF, and the massed demonstrations on the streets.

An interesting morning trying to provide remote family assistance in computing and designing a text document, before walking over to Horningsea and back on a sunny Sunday afternoon. The walk was marred by fly-tipping on Fen Road, beyond the rail crossing. Red paint and liquid chlorine canisters were among the rubbish strewn on either side of the road, with a potential for contaminating the water in the field drains leading to the River Cam.

Fly-tipping has increased again for the third year in a row by 4%. In the last recorded 2016/17 year data, there were a million incidents, costing local councils at least £57 million to clear away. Most of the waste is domestic (67%), with just over half being either a small van or car-boot load. Data from the ONS, see https://goo.gl/6jgCV9. Fly-tipping is senseless, selfish, damages the environment and adds to all our council tax bills

Brexit Agreement Between Greece and Germany over UK Based EU Agencies. New Garden Fence.

Frost on the car 2016

There has been an unexpected political breakthrough with Brexit. Not between the UK and the other EU countries, but between Germany and Greece, according to Der Spiegel (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/brexit-deutschland-und-griechenland-wollen-britische-eu-institutionen-aufteilen-a-1178477.html)

They have come to an agreement to help each other with the relocation of EU institutions that will have to relocate out of the UK on Brexit. 

The Greeks have agreed to support the move of the European Banking Authority (EBA), which regulates banking in the EU, to Frankfurt in Germany. 

In return, Germany suggested and now supports the relocation of the European Medicines Agency, responsible for the the evaluation and supervision of medicines for human and veterinary use to protect both humans and animals, to Athens in Greece. The final decisions on the relocation of EU agencies out of the UK into other EU countries is to occur in the coming weeks. It looks like a major fence-mending initiative between the two countries after the vilification of Germany during the Greek financial crisis and vice versa.

Whilst only 72 UK citizens of the approximately 1000 EU staff will have to leave the agency once they are no longer EU citizens, these are flagship organisations that have a major impact throughout the EU.

Andy and assistant came by today to replace the dilapidated one third of our garden fence. The major battle was to deal with the tree roots that had to be removed from the locations where the fence-posts were to be concreted in. Hard work with shovel, chainsaw and borrowed neighbour's axe were finally rewarded with the fence installed before the afternoon light disappeared and temperatures began to plummet again towards freezing.

A Federal UK With Hard internal Borders? Children in Need

Guided Busway Nov 2012

The main news on Brexit has been the response to Prime Minister Theresa May's visit to Donald Tusk. Progress has been made in terms of treatment of EU citizens post Brexit in the UK and UK citizens in the EU. However, the EU wants more movement on commitment re the divorce bill and Ireland has come out sharply stating that they will block any decisions that create a hard border between the North and South of Ireland. The Telegraph is speculating that David Davis might resign as he is being excluded from some civil service communications on Brexit and that the EU might withhold the hallowed rebate, negotiated by Margaret Thatcher.

The Spiegel brought an interesting study and potential solution to light, proposed by legal expert Nikos Skoutaris from the University of East Anglia here in Cambridge. If the UK adopts a real federation of the Four Nations, without any seceding from the UK, then Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland could opt to remain in the EU. The hard border would then be at the boundaries of England. A fascinating theoretical solution - see https://doi.org/10.1017/cel.2017.11.

Woke up late, the bus arrived late, so I couldn't make the Taproom for the A14 networking this morning, instead going straight to the Norris. I was doing some online work, in-between a fascinating conversation around GM, pests and diseases. This evening was dominated by the annual Children in Need charity event on BBC1. At the end of the program, the sum collected was an amazing £50,168562!

Walk along the Thames and Visiting Turner's house

Tate Modern Turbine Hall today

With Prime Minister Theresa May to hold talks with Donald Tusk tomorrow, David Davis made a trip to Brussels to ask the EU to put prosperity before politics.

Breakfast was followed by moderating a telephone conversation between two of the German delegation and an interested UK contact.

We then had a couple of hours to kill before the afternoons visit to Twickenham. Together with a third, we strode off towards the Bank of England and then on to St Pauls.

Circumnavigating the Cathedral, we crossed the Millennium bridge to the Tate Modern for a drink and rest break. I was delighted to see the giant pendulum in the great turbine hall. The other exhibit looked like a fun collection of swings, but we had to move on again.

The path along the south bank of the Thames at full tide became ever busier with stands and kiosks as we approached the London Eye. It was too late to dash over Westminster Bridge to have a look at Westminster Abbey. We made our way to Waterloo station, bought some sandwiches, and took the Hounslow train to St Margaret's station in Twickenham.

We arrived outside Turner's House on Sandycoombe Road just as the other's of our party came from two other directions. The house was designed and built by England’s great landscape painter, J.M.W. Turner in his youth and peak of his popularity, between 1807 and 1814. He lived there with his father till about 1826. The house had been restored to its original design by Gary Butler (Butler Hegarty Architects) for the Turner’s House Trust. We had a fascinating talk by Gary, who had come specially, as we were walked around the exterior of the house first and then the interior rooms. You get a totally different perspective on a building when you have the person who has lived and breathed an architectural project talking and answering questions from craftsmen and women involved in conservation.

Things I took away from this deliberately rustic little building:

• The uneven shapes of double fired bricks and penny-line pointing - where the mortar between the slightly uneven bricks was scored with a line about the thickness of an old penny to achieve the appearance of regular brickwork.
• The location of the house, originally very much in the countryside outside London, as a rustic small  'fishing lodge', with a large garden and a fishing pond the size of three football fields and views to the river and scenes that Turner had painted.
• That Turner's father used to walk to London (8 miles) to help out Turner in his Studio, and then back.
• The red glass light in the stairwell where, when the sun shone through, a red glow would wander around the marbling painted walls during the day.

We traveled back to the Hotel and I picked up my suitcase and journeyed home. It was a great three days, but I was looking forward to coming home again.

Fear of Increased Prices and Delays. Blown Glass. Zeitgeist Food and Drink

Wednesday 15th November: ‘Don’t mention the B-word’ was a recurrent ironic refrain in today’s talks. But it was there, inevitably turning up when there was any thought about cross-border trade.

Whether it was fear of the increased prices and delays in the transport of supplies from construction to payment, or the thought that maybe it would be sensible to set up a separate company in another EU state, the common buzzword was uncertainty. Politically, the outrage on the Telegraph’s front page at 15 Tory MPs asking for change in the current Brexit bill to be discussed, effectively branding them party traitors, was effectively quashed both by Downing Street and the MPs themselves stating that discussion was a sensible part of the parliamentary process.

Yet the day was actually a very positive one. My role this morning was to chair the talks, with the ambitious objective of timing three 15 minute expert talks, ten 7 minute presentations and two Q and As. On top of this, I was supposed to present three of the talks, with another also done by one of the organisers, for participants not confident in or lacking English. Given a bit of support, the four were able to become either part of a double act, or find that their English was OK. Asking for explanations about their photos of examples of restoration, brought out the experts and engaged the audience.  We got through to lunchtime safely, with the audience awake and feeling informed.

Everyone agreed that the highlight talk was by blown glass makers Lamberts. Their short video captured the audience with its demonstration of gravity assisted glass blowing and there was a commendation from the lead conservator of York Minster, on the restoration of their largest stained-glass window in Europe.

The evening finished with German food and drink as ‘Zeitgeist’, the Autumn Event by the German Embassy at the Jolly Gardeners, on Black Prince Rd, Vauxhall. For two hours, drink and food flowed freely as German taxpayer’ money was returned in comestibles. Some of us returned to the hotel via a walk along the South bank of the River, enjoying the lights of Parliament and Big Ben reflected on the water, then crossing at Westminster to catch the tube.

Worries About Construction. Inappropriate Touching-Up

Inappropriate touching-(up)

Tuesday 14th November. Brexit appeared in a more personal way today as I attended the first meeting with a German delegation of restorers and conservators, craftsmen and women interested in establishing links with the UK. A common message from the UK contacts was, business had been good in 2016 and 2017, there was a worrying dip in prospective work for 2018.

Having completed our talks, which extended into lunchtime as they overran, I made my way with two of the visitors from our Hotel in Aldgate to Tower Pier, to catch a riverboat clipper to Greenwich to meet up with the rest of the delegation. We were caught by surprise as, after pulling away from the pier and taking to the centre of the river, the captain opened full throttle and the catamaran accelerated forward and roared downstream. It was an exhilarating ride in-between stops.

We arrived just in time to join the rest of the delegation on a tour of the restoration of the Painted Hall ceiling. There was a slight hiccup regarding our Health and Safety credentials, before we were accompanied in hard hats and reflective jackets, much to the bemusement of the Germans. We were in a building with an intact ceiling, standing on a secure floor!

With the ceiling within arm’s reach, and the lighting glancing and reflecting off the ceiling, we were too close to see the big picture. Instead, the excellent tour guide pointed out features and figures that had not been seen from below before restoration, in a voice reminiscent of Hillary Clinton. A hidden lion, figures that were in the background, the symbolism of the figures and icons surrounding the royal figures of Queen Anne and King William.

Inappropriate behaviour towards women is in the current news, and we were shown a 200 year old one. The appointed cleaner of the ceiling at that time left his signature on the Queen’s bosom, invisible from far below, but noticeable under the torch of the guide when viewed from a few feet away.

Trump Trade Not Rights. Oenophiles Poor Harvest Year

Prickly Parliament

David Davis tries to mollify an irascible Parliament prior to the debates on the Brexit bill, by offering a vote on the final agreement achieved  with the EU prior to the UK exiting. however, even some Tories are calling foul as if no deal is reached , the UK will exit without consulting parliament.

President Trump comes to the end of his Asia tour and one of the things that has been remarkably absent - human rights. Indeed, President Trump was very warm towards President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who has positively encouraged murder squads in his own country.  I note that Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar was in the line up of leaders at the ASEAN photoshoot, with apparently little comment on the treatment of the Rohinga.  With the US stepping out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, and concentrating on 'making America great again', it looks as if China is stepping into the global leader gap left behind.

Heard of two factors today that are likely to upset British oenophiles (lovers of wine). A combination of poor European grape harvests due to the year's extreme weather, and the poor performance of the pound, are likely to lead to significant rises in wine prices.

Remembrace Sunday. Different Brexit Perspectives. Sunny Sherlock Sunday

Kings Cross Station Remembrance Day

Over 18 million military and civilians were killed in WWI. In WWII it rose to 60 million people  killed, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population. The Armistice that came into effect on 11th November, 11am, 1918 was commemorated in 1919 at Buckingham Palace and became to be known as Remembrance Day, in honour of the fallen. The first two minute silence was observed in London, UK in 1919. The wearing of (real) poppies became associated with the event by 1921 and linked to the charitable work of the Royal British Legion, which promotes the welfare and interests of current and former members of the British Armed Forces. In 1939, the UK moved the event to the nearest Sunday to the 11th November, which became Remembrance Sunday. In the 1990's, there was a campaign to reinstate the commemoration of Armistice Day on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Nowadays, both Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday remember the fallen in conflicts since 1914.

The UK psyche has been deeply affected by the death of nearly half a million in the UK and Commonwealth in WWII (Wikipedia)

Continental Europe, was even more affected by the death and destruction of WWII, with an estimated 15 million deaths in central and Eastern Europe (Russia suffered an  additional estimated 26.6 million),(Wikipedia).  At the end of the war, tens of millions of refugees moved within Europe. The  European Coal and Steel Community was established in 1950 to unite European countries economically and politically, in order to secure lasting peace and prevent the conflicts that had marked Europe for centuries. The development of the European Union followed.

This is all relevant in the current apparent impasse in the Brexit negotiations. Britain does not see itself as part of the political EU program and wants to determine its own future politically and economically. Most of the other 27 countries in the EU might be concerned about the economic impact of Brexit, but overall, the benefits of unification in terms of 70 years of peace in Europe are an equally strong argument. Of the dominant EU players, Germany is still deeply aware of its shameful role in WWII and the Holocaust and France still remembers the trauma of the conflicts fought on its soil. Unity therefore overrides plain economic arguments of temporary pain due to Brexit, especially as the EU economy is faring much better than the UK.

The UK government is in a delicate balance between remainers and brexiteers. The Tory party is in turmoil, with Johnson and Gove pressing May to follow their Brexit route, and an increasing number of back bench MP's looking towards May's removal. It is at a disadvantage in negotiations, where we in the UK are a $2.6 trillion economy (5th largest)  negotiating with a remaining $14 trillion economy that is still the second largest in the world after the US ($18 trillion). Blinking first and moving towards the EU position in the current stalemate would be political suicide in the UK for the current Conservative government. Not making concessions leads to delay and more uncertainty.

A hard Brexit has never looked so likely.

A cold but sunny day, I had a late start before Jane and I went to visit L & S for a Sunday lunch, an enjoyable round of The Sherlock Holmes Master Detective Game, followed by a spiced apple cake and tea.

Rotting Crops Brexit. Trump - Putin. NHM. Alexandra Burke and Gorka.

Toadfish at the NHM

Cornwall asked the government for help as a result of Brexit as a shortage of EU workers means that crops are rotting in some fields already. There is a real need to ensure that priorities for allowing immigrant workers should reflect local needs. According to Ian Duncan Smith, the Prime Minister should hold firm and 'not blink' in the face of the EU demands for settling a Brexit bill. Meanwhile, Ireland is adding pressure emphasising the necessity for the whole of Ireland, North and South, to be within the custom's union. The swirl of speculation in the media is that the government is in an impossible and weak place, however, support for Theresa May as a leader increased by a percentage point.

President Trump has had several short conversations with President Putin during the  Asian summit. Putin categorically denied that he had anything to do with influencing the US elections and Donald Trump is minded to believe him. This evoked an immediate response from Mike Pompeo, CIA Director that the CIA stands by US intelligence assessments that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.

Another early Saturday for me as I took the train to London, for a Quekett committee meeting and a Workshop. Alan Wood and Graham Matthews gave demonstrations of how they used Photoshop or Photoshop elements. The basic principles included cropping, adjusting levels, image contrasting and colour editing, sharpening and saving. I joined in the demonstration after the talks, having Gimp to edit a couple of member's pictures to show how it could be done. I got back home in the Middle of Strictly to see a fantastic Amanda Burke and Gorka Argentinian Tango.

Barnier Brexit Ultimatum. Boris Bull. Out and About

St Ives Winter Trees

Michel Barnier, chief EU Negotiator, has given the UK two weeks to make substantial progress if it wants the negotiations to go on to the next stage. There was also an EU paper leaked that suggested that the only way for there to be no physical border between Northern Ireland and Ireland is if Northern Ireland is within the customs union. Apparently the pressure comes from Ireland. The DUP is not happy at the thought of effectively proposing a border between Northern Ireland and its main business partner, the rest of the UK. David Davis still talks of good progress being made this week, but we still seem to be in the same spot of not having resolved the three key issues: the rights of EU citizens after Brexit, the outstanding financial commitments to be paid and the way to avoid a hard border in Ireland.

Boris Johnson's 'Gaff of the Day' was arguing pro bull-fighting in front of a Spanish audience that contained a significant opposition to the activity. Surely he must be doing this deliberately in an attempt to get fired from the Cabinet and become a free agent again.

I was wondering if it had been a bad idea to set out with the remnants of the cold this morning, but great conversation in the Taproom let me forget the symptoms. Afterwards, a fellow Norris Museum volunteer asked for some photography help in the Museum, which involved us adapting a pair of lights to illuminate a selection of pictures to photograph. This was followed by downloading and installing Gimp and providing some basic instruction in how to tidy up the images, remove perspective artefacts and save the edited image.

I caught a lift with Nick Smith to the HBN 'Out and About' visit to the company Webtec Products Ltd in St Ives. The name for this technology firm arose from the 'Webster' in its previous names, in a period where the internet was not yet in existence, hence the possible confusion about what it does. Webtec actually specialises in producing hydraulic components and, more importantly, measuring equipment for hydraulic systems. It was a great tour with eight other HBNers, given by Managing Director Martin Cuthbert and I'll report it in a separate blog elsewhere. Asked about their markets and Brexit, I learnt that just like the UK as a whole, 50 % of business is with the EU. The biggest concern with Brexit was the continued uncertainty about how it was going to unfold.

Penny Mourdant Balances May's Cabinet. A Bookish Day.

Autumnal leaves from a good previous year

With Priti Patel having resigned from the cabinet, Prime Minister May had to find another Brexiteer to balance the numbers. Penny Mourdant was appointed  as International Development Secretary. She has parliamentary experience, is MP for Portsmouth North, a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, a member of the British Astronomical Association and a Royal Naval Reservist. The latter giving rise to the opportunity for the following statement:

“I have benefited from some excellent training by the Royal Navy, but on one occasion I felt that it was not as bespoke as it might have been. Fascinating though it was, I felt that the lecture and practical demonstration on how to care for the penis and testicles in the field failed to appreciate that some of us attending had been issued with the incorrect kit.”

She does fill the role of Brexiteer, though not with the best credentials. According to Wikipedia, in a 2016 TV interview,  she denied that the UK had a veto on Turkey joining the EU. This despite Article 49 of the EU constitution requiring a unanimous vote of all 28 members of the General Council to allow a candidate state to join, meaning a member state could veto the process.

Received a delivery of the third print run of 'Understanding and Using the Light Microscope' today, quite chuffed that it is still ticking over as a book! At the other end of the process, spent the day working on completing draft manuscripts, without images, for two authors and posted them off.  The cold that set in Tuesday evening looks as if it might have peaked today.

EU Rebuffs New UK Registration System. Voting Sheep? Apples

Apple Day in Ely 2012

Britain has proposed a new streamlined registration system for EU citizens applying for permanent residency in the UK, making it equivalent in cost to applying for a UK passport. However, the EU parliament still believes that EU citizens should be able to stay in the UK automatically after Britain leaves the EU and that the proposal is still inadequate.

Prime Minister May accepted the resignation of another cabinet minister, Priti Patel, the former UK international development secretary. It looks as if at one point PP was on a private visit holding these unsanctioned events, whilst her junior minister was also in Israel for official meetings, yet unaware of her activity. Another tricky decision ahead for the PM on who to bring in to fill the vacancy.

Good news then, that UK Cambridge researchers have been able to demonstrate that sheep can be taught to recognise human faces. Perhaps they could be enrolled in future elections, voting with their feet, to replace a potentially fickle human electorate that might be swayed by scandal. The downside would be the rustling of sheep voting for one candidate and retraining them to vote for another. Then there would be the dilemma of whether to eat lamb from your political persuasion as an act of solidarity, or whether to eat those from the opposition in an attempt to reduce the electorate. Mind you, with only 5.3 million sheep in the US, they might be better off with the also intelligent pig, at over 70 million.

With the NHS needing more funding to counter the increase in waiting times for hospital appointments and operations, the NHS chief Simon Stevens forecast that one in twelve of the UK population could be on a hospital waiting list by 2021. He further said that perhaps the government should start giving the NHS the money promised by the Brexit campaigners during the EU referendum campaign.

A cold having properly set in, it was a late start, finishing the touches on a brochure for a visiting German delegation to the UK next week. We had a disruptive and unexpected set of power cuts, wth a warning that we should prepare for another over the early afternoon. Not wanting a crashed computer again, I instead baked a new loaf:

150g Camilla sourdough, 200g strong white flour, 200g wholemeal bread flour, 8g salt, a level desert spoon of dried yeast (6g), 200g raw pureed apple made up to 250 ml with a bit of water and lemon juice, handful of ground hazelnuts, desertspoon of Nutella. Whilst kneading, I did have to add a bit more water. Allowed to rise for 90 minutes and then knocked back and placed in bread tin to rise for further 2h before baking. It created a denser loaf than usual, tasty, though you couldn't really tatse the apple.

I used one of our remaining large eaters/cookers of unknown variety, quite sweet but firm. According to Elzebroek & Wind 2008, there are over 7500 cultivated apple varieties, divided into eaters, cookers and cider apples. Then there are the wild crabapples scattered in our hedgerows.

The wild ancestor of the apple originated in the mountains of southern Kazakhstan and has been cultivated and develped over millenia. It was probably the first fruit tree to be cultivated and has a special importance for us humans. Normally, apples grow into very large trees. This is countered by grafting onto root stocks that reduce the rampant growth. The extreme development are the pillars, which have very little lateral branching, great for small gardens.

To maintain a true variety, you cannot grow apples from seed, you have to propagate them from cuttings to keep them true to type. This is because fertilisation results in a mixing and shuffling of genes, so that, as with humans, the offspring can be very different from the parents. Then again, it is these new plants that could yield a variety of the future.

Brexit Happiness in England, With Exceptions. Trump in Korea, 625 Piece Mosaic Completed

Roman Mosaic Desenzano

England is marginally happier and has a greater satisfaction withl life since the announcement of Brexit, whilst the other nations are unchanged, according to the most recent data to June 2017 presented by the ONS. Possible explanations included the following paragraph:

"Some of the increases in well-being ratings may be explained through the improvement in certain economic indicators within the UK. For example, the employment rate is at its highest level since comparable records began in 1971 and the unemployment rate is at its joint lowest since 1975. Additionally, there were improvements in both gross domestic product (GDP) per head and net national disposable income (NNDI) per head. Despite these improvements, real household disposable income (RHDI) per head fell for the fourth quarter in a row and, for the first time in two years, consumers reported a worsening perception of their own financial situation in April to June 2017."

People countering this trend could be Boris Johnson for a quote that may unwittingly lead to longer imprisonment for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iran. He has apologised. International Development Secretary Priti Patel has had to explain that she held in excess of 14 unauthorised meetings in Israel. Parliament is unhappy with the government delaying the release of the 58 Brexit Documents. Some politicians and the TUC are unhappy as the government has issued the first reading of the Trade Bill just before parliament has a week off.

President Donald Trump has been presidential and restrained in South Korea, expressing a willingness to talk with North Koreas Kim Jong -un, whilst gently pointing out that three major aircraft carriers and nuclear submarine are just off the coast of the peninsula. In his opinion, gun control is not an issue in the Texas massacre as someone with a gun prevented someone else with a gun killing more than 26 people.

Gave the talk to the Milton Local History Group tonight, on Roman Villas, Church Paintings and Romeo & Juliet in Lombardy/Veneto. Afterwards, during the break with tea/coffee and Italian biscuits, attendees joined in to create a 625 Roman mosaic in the design of a knot, using a pattern and materials provided by mosaic artist Richard Morgan.

Disappearing Nurses, Paradise Letters. My Hot Air Balloon Flight.

Brexit is having a negative effect on the NHS with the number of nurses from the EU coming to work in the UK has fallen dramatically in the past year and in increasing number are leaving. It is leaving 40,000 unfilled posts in the NHS. There have also been warnings that EU based car companies are likely to replace their UK suppliers for parts with alternatives in the EU, as it will be easier sourcing within the Common Market. The Speaker, John Bercow, has given the government till Tuesday evening to provide the papers to the Exiting the European Union committee of cross party MPs, or provide an explanation why it has not occurred by then.

Following on from the tales of mysogeny and ways to combat it in Parliament, there is now the fall-out from the so-called Paradise papers, showing the widespread use of offshore trusts for tax avoidance. Even the Queen (and most pension trusts) have millions stashed away in these legal tax loopholes.

Having fed some Koi with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and met with the Emperor and Empress of Japan before jetting out to South Korea. The US is still reeling from the latest massacre of 26, including children, in a church in Texas, where guns are still not the issue.

In contrast, my Virgin Balloon ride was on at last, after nearly a year of trying. To avoid the rush hour traffic, I optimistically set off one and three quarter hours to arrive early and have a breakfast at a nearby Holiday Inn, before checking in at the launch area at Huntingdon Race Course at 9 am. Due to an accident blocking the A14 at Huntingdon and causing chaos all the way down to within a mile of where I joined it. it took me one hour and forty minutes to get there, just in time for a last stop at the loo.  The pre-launch message last night had suggested it might be prudent to wear wellies in case the launch field was muddy. Encouraged by the lush grass, my ankle length trainer boots were fine

Being among the first, another and I were partnered to help inflate the balloon by holding the lower end open. I had not realised that the balloon is initially inflated with cold air, until it looks like a giant gourd lying on the ground. It is then that the burners are started and hot air begins to generate the lift.  It became increasingly difficult to hold on to the balloon as it billowed upwards. Letting go, it did not take long for the globe to expand, rising to start tugging at the basket. I went into the basket head over heels with Pilot Pete to add a bit of ballast, followed by the rest of the passengers.

A quick security briefing, then it was sit down in the basket for all twelve of us as the burners generated more lift. Imperceptibly, we rose above the ground and gently accelerated into a slow climb into the sky. Initially we were travelling northwards till we entered a south-easterly breeze at about 500 feet. We continued to climb, reaching over 3,500 feet as we drifted over Huntingdon. I took lots of photos, but with altitude, the faint mist below, only just perceived by eye, reduced the contrast on the images.

The relatively low altitude of the balloon flight, the silent passage occasionally interrupted by the roar and radiated heat of the burners, all made it more fascinating to watch the houses, roads, cars miniaturised below and stretching into a distant horizon. We could see the playing field with several football pitches, filled with tiny figures at play. The shadows of a line of cows stretched across a meadow as the autumn sun was still relatively low on the horizon.

We were fortunate to also pass over the Hemingfords and then St Ives, where I could pick out familiar landmarks I'd visited or passed through. After an hour, the balloon gradually sank lower as Pete aimed for a stubble field. Just a few hundred feet above a field, we were noticed by a herd of multicoloured - and quite handsome - cows. Rather than flee as we thought they might, they moved closer, looking up with obvious curiosity as we passed overhead.

Within a few tens of feet of the ground we all resumed our landing positions, sitting in the basket and holding tight. The landing was a lot bumpier. We had been warned we might bounce between three and six times. We all counted along and just when we thought there might be a seventh, instead the basket leant over 45 degrees on the ground. For a few seconds we held that position, till it gently righted and we had landed. The balloon rapidly deflated and soon lay like a two dimensional shadow of itself.

Climbing out and helping to fold the balloon and pack it into the impossibly small bag for such a large canopy, I began to regret not having worn wellies after all. The stubble barely covered a very claggy ground and our shoes and boots soon doubled in weight and gained an inch or so in height with the accumulating clay. All packed up, balloon and basket finally winched onto the trailer that had met us, we escaped to a grassier area by the access path for photographs and the welcome celebratory fizz, or in my case, orange juice.

We clung onto the trailer as it took us down the bumpy track to the tarmacked road, we boarded the waiting minibus to take us back to our cars. Fortunately the A14 was now clear till the junction with the A428/M11 due to another accident, near Histon. I went into Cambridge on the Huntingdon Road and then out again via Milton Road, home by lunchtime.

Thank you Louise, Alex and Jane for a great 2016 birthday present!

President Trump Abroad. Fireworks Replace Penny for the Guy.

November 2016 fireworks

President Trump has embarked on a thirteen day tour of Asia, with stops in Hawaii, Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. The main objective will be to present a unified message on the threat posed by North Korea, which is working to have an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), tipped with a nuclear warhead, that can reach the US mainland.

CNN quotes Joseph DeThomas, a 30-year veteran of the US Foreign Service and expert in nuclear nonproliferation, "It's the first time in my life -- having served every president since Jimmy Carter -- that I'm saying, 'Oh, please don't let the President go. I don't see a lot of good coming out of this and I see lots of risk of an unfiltered comment generating lots of consequences."

We might be pleasantly surprised.

Yet this is all way down the news headlines, with the states being more interested in the Russia inquiry and negative comments by both Presidents Bush on Trump.

Fireworks were going off at irregular intervals this evening, it being Bonfire Night. Originally it was a compulsory celebratory day enshrined by the  'Observance of 5th November Act', to commemorate James I protection from the unsuccessful attempt to blow up the King and Parliament by catholic conspirators in 1605. It was also a sectarian event, pro the protestant Royalty and against Catholics. After a while effigies of the pope were burnt at the event. Over time, this changed into burning effigies of Guy Fawkes, with the name Guy Fawkes day taking over. I still remember Guys being made and wheeled around with a traditional cry of 'Penny for the Guy!' just over 25 years ago in Cambridge, to be burnt on the traditional bonfire. We also used to repeat the rhyme as children:

"Remember, Remember,
The 5th of November
Of gunpowder, treason and plot"

Fireworks became a feature of Bonfire nights by the 17th century, were banned for fear of setting London alight, and then came back into use. Nowadays, the event has turned into 'Fireworks Night' with the bonfire signalling the end of what are now mainly large. public events in villages and towns.

Our pets and wildlife in general do not enjoy the noisy fireworks. We know that they will occur on a certain day, over a set evening or series of nights on or around the 5th November. So although there is an initial reaction to the first bang, most of us do not feel fear as we know what the noise is. Animals lack this knowledge and for them, the loud bangs initiate a startled response and a flight reaction. Add to this, that both cats and dogs have a more sensitive hearing than humans, over wider range of sound frequencies. Firework bangs, screeches and whistles must grate on their ears far more than on ours.  There does seem to be some genetic variation in how dogs react, with hunting breeds like Great Danes and Springer spaniels being less affected than others.

Spare a thought for the wildlife, both mammals and birds, outside the shelter and sound proofing of our homes. Studies have shown that fireworks create  anxiety and stress in wildlife, generating panicked flight in birds or deer, for example. The effects persist beyond the actual firework event.

Key US Climate Change Report. Primary Writing Tremor. Italian Church Paintings.

A ray of light in the murky world of politics. The Trump adminsitration has released the 4 yearly scientific report on climate change without significant changes today. The report, the Fourth National Climate Assessment 2017, available here at https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/CSSR2017_FullReport.pdf , baldly states that it is 95% or more likely that 90% of global warming is man-made.  “A lot of what we’ve been learning over the last four year suggests the possibility that things may have been more serious than we think,” according to Robert Kopp of Rutgers University. Key quotes from the report are:

• Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8°F (1.0°C) over the last 115 years (1901–2016). This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization. 
• It is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.
• Global average sea levels have risen by about 7–8 inches since 1900. They are expected to continue to rise—by at least several inches in the next 15 years and by 1–4 feet by 2100. A rise of as much as 8 feet by 2100 cannot be ruled out. 
• The global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has now passed 400 parts per million (ppm), a level that last occurred about 3 million years ago, when both global average temperature and sea level were significantly higher than today. 
• The magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally.

The neighbours large leaved cherry tree is usually a good indicator of whether we will have an Autumn full of rich reds, yellows and greens. Could global warming be responsible for the less colourful autumn we are experiencing in Milton? One of the factors that can prevent the development of the rich reds is drought and our region has experienced a lower than average rainfall this year.

I traveled to Addenbrookes Hospital by bus today and found myself talking to two regular patients, returning for treatment. The young motorised-wheelchair bound woman was an eternal optimist despite her life threatening condition. NHS shortages were brought sharply into focus by her matter of fact statement that she and her husband, who also needed care, were carers for each other as there were no available care staff to come and give the care and assistance they were entitled to.

Once some of the passengers had got off, I gratefully sank into a free seat next to an older gentleman also travelling to Addenbrookes to have his dressings for a major wound changed. A diabetic, he had lost the sense of pain in his legs and was therefore prone to large injuries without noticing. Whilst most of us would like to avoid pain at all costs, it's absence takes away a vital indicator of danger to our bodies. We got talking about growing vegetables and he left me with this wonderful childhood reminiscence. Carrots are prone to a pest called carrot fly. As a boy, he worked on a farm with horses.  He remembered soaking sacks in paraffin, tying them behind a horse and then dragging the smelly sacks over the carrot plants in a field. Enough of the paraffin scent remained to deter carrot fly.

I got off the bus and wandered to Clinic 12 feeling a bit of a fraud in comparison to the others. I've been suffering an increasing uncontrollable tremor when writing. It makes note taking and fine drawing practically impossible. A friend had warned that a hand tremor was the first sign of his early stage Parkinsons disease. The neurologist wanted to see the tremor in action but we hit a problem. The increasingly computerised NHS meant that he had neither pen nor paper in his office. He had to dash up to the clinic's reception to remedy the situation.

A succession of tests on reflexes, hand and body movements and he gave me a diagnosis that had me laugh out loud. The most likely diagnosis was 'Primary Writing Tremor'! Yes, the condition actually exists. It is one of a family of task related tremors, that is, tremors that only occur with specific actions. Musicians can be afflicted with their own tremors. Writer's tremors can be initiated simply by writing or by certain muscular movements for certain numbers and letters. With me it is a combination of writing above a certain speed and the fine control of creating the letters. Apparently the brain becomes too active in sending signals to the fingers/hand and the conflicting messages generate a tremor of about 5 to 7 Hz.

Medication was possible -  with potential side effects as always. However, relieved that it was not a more debilitating or life threatening illness, I chose not to go down the medicine route. In fact, I had already researched the calligraphy literature and found a different way of writing, from the shoulder, rather than from the hand. I'm still a bit slow, but at least I can write legibly.

The day ended with a visit to a friendly couple in the village who were interested in Church iconography and interior art. I will be using some of the hundreds of photos taken in three churches in Italy on holiday for a talk. For once the internet failed me in providing information on the churches and the paintings I had recorded.

We spent a couple of hours going through my images, zooming in and out and being amazed at the beauty, imagination and sometimes just downright weird paintings. It was good for me as the gloom of the churches and cathedrals hid some of the detail I was now able to see on screen. Their cat found my lap comfortable and supervised most of our interaction, purring, until a lone firework bang had her jump and scurrying off to hide in the kitchen.

MPs fall, Williamson Rises. Finding the Geographer. Milton Sugar Beet.

More soul searching in the ranks of politicians about sexual harassment after Michael Fallon's departure and Labour's suspension of Luton North MP Kelvin Hopkins.

Fallon has been replaced by former Chief Whip Gavin Williamson as Defence Secretary. A move seen by some as bringing in the next generation of aspiring politicians; as a misuse of his position to remove Fallon and fill his post by others.

Spain has arrested members of the disbanded Catalonian government and imprisoned them pending trial. The Spanish government is considering taking out an international arrest warrant for the former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont.

I took the bike out to Histon today, suffering the indignity of more people overtaking me on their bikes than I overtook others and then failing to find 'The Geographer'.  My subconscious visualisation of a village pub meant that I went straight past the small cafe on Station Road, mistaking it for another house. When I did finally get there, it was a small but lively networking group in a busy but very pleasant cafe that has made a success as a daytime village venue.

I cycled back out through Impington and along the rural cycle path back to Milton. Just beyond Sunclose Farm, on Butt Lane, There was a row of five large container lorries, one of which was being loading with sugar beet via a conveyor belt across the hedge from the mounds in the field. A second was ready to take its place.

The drivers of the remaining three were taking the opportunity for a quick mug of tea and a chat. I stopped out of curiosity and entered a bit of banter as to whether I should go off and get them some bacon butties whilst they were waiting. It turned out that it was not five loads of sugar beet to be moved, it was 71, all destined for the sugar beet works in Bury St Edmunds.

The sugar beet is a variety of the common beet Beta vulgaris, one of the Altissima cultivars. It originated in Silesia. The King of Prussia initiated research into the development of sugar rich beet in the mid 18th century. By 1801, Moritz Baron von Koppy and his son further selected for white, conical tubers with a 6% sugar content. The variety was named 'Weiße Schlesische Zuckerrübe', (white Silesian sugar beet).

Napoleon encouraged further research and development in France as the British were blockading the delivery of cane sugar during the Napoleonic Wars. By 1880 sugar beet accounted for 50% of the world's sugar production. The widespread destruction of agricultural land during World War I and replacement of sugar beet by cereal production led to a resurgence of cane sugar. Modern cultivation has increased again and by 2009, sugar beet accounted for about 20% of sugar production worldwide.

The biggest irony for Milton is, that whilst we are producing sugar beet and sugar in our region, our Tescos store has switched from stocking Silver Spoon sugar from local sugar beet to sourcing sugar from Tate and Lyle, which uses cane sugar imported from tropical countries, thousands of miles away.